


Dead End

by orphan_account



Category: Catfish: The TV Show
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:59:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3580365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nev and Max hit a dead end searching for a catfish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead End

Max and Lena looked up hopefully as Nev walked back into the room. He gave them a gentle shake of his head. “Nothing,” he said. “The call didn’t even go through. He must have it set so people can only text him or something.”

“Damn it,” Max said. “What are we supposed to do now? We’ve got nothing on this guy.”

Nev took a seat next to Lena, and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll try again in a little while,” he said. “In the mean time, let’s think of what we know about Marc, and see if there’s something we’re missing.”

“We have a name that he’s probably lying about,” Max said. “And a few pictures that are also probably lies. But we don’t have an address, or even a city. We can’t get any information from his phone number, we can’t get in contact with any of his facebook friends… we’ve hit a dead end. I mean, there’s literally nothing on this guy.”

“There’s always something,” Nev said, looking at Lena. She had been quiet, but he could see how much she was hurting, her shoulders heaving with the effort of trying not to cry. “Lena, is there anything else you can think of? Maybe just one little thing he said that might give us a clue?”

Lena thought. “He complains about the snow sometimes,” she said. “That doesn’t narrow it down too much.”

“It pretty much rules out the South,” Nev said, shrugging. Max rolled his eyes. They had been on the road for a long time, and he was sure this wasn’t going to pan out, so he was ready to give up and move on to the next one. But Nev still had hope. There had been plenty of times when they thought it wasn’t going to work out, and it always did. It just took some time, and some convincing. “Anything else?”

Something suddenly hit Lena. “Yeah, actually,” she said. She picked up her phone and started scrolling through texts. “A little while ago, he said he was going to a concert. If you get the date, you can look up where it was, right?”

“Lena that’s perfect,” Nev said. He shot Max an I-told-you-so look. Max just shook his head.

“It’s a ways back,” she said. “It’s going to take me a little while to find it.”

“How about we leave you to it and give you some time to relax then,” Nev said. “Max and I will head back to the hotel, and you can text us with the info once you find it.”

“Alright,” Lena said. “Sounds good.”

“We’ll be in touch, alright?” Nev stood up, and gave Lena a hug. She was only nineteen, and she was so full of love for this guy Marc. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“We’ll do our best,” Max said, giving Lena a quick pat on the shoulder and letting his hand graze Nev’s as it fell. Nev looked at him. He had been thinking that Max had been too good for too long. He always thought he was so subtle when he was on camera, but he never was. “Let’s get out of here.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------

“I got the text,” Nev said. “Marc went to a Say Anything concert on November thirtieth.”

“Well call the camera crew in if you want,” Max said, stroking Nev’s hair. “I’m not getting out of this bed.”

“Max, come on,” Nev said, pulling himself out from under Max’s arm and sitting up so he could look him in the eye. “This is for Lena.”

“Can’t we help Lena from right here?” Max asked. Nev could tell that his callous attitude was masking the fact that he and Nev hadn’t had time alone together in a while. Being on the road was great because they got to spend so much time together without other projects getting in the way, but the camera crew got in the way quite a bit.

“Do you have any idea what the MTV execs will do to us if they find out they’ve been paying for an unused hotel room everywhere we go?” Nev asked.

“Stop paying for an extra room and just let us be together publicly?” Max asked. He had him there. Despite how open the show was about sexuality, it was pretty clear that the big guys didn’t want to rustle any feathers when it came to him and Max. Nothing had ever been said, of course, but the execs had seen the show, seen the two of them together. They had their suspicions just like the fans did.

“Okay,” Nev said. “We’ll stay here, and crack the case from bed. We’ll call the camera crew in later and do the whole thing over again for their benefit, sitting at a desk. How does that sound?”

“Do you really think we’re going to crack this case?” Max asked.

Nev looked at him. “We have to,” he said. “For Lena.”

Max grabbed his phone off of the nightstand. “For Lena,” he said. But it wasn’t just for Lena, it was for Nev. It didn’t matter how long it had been since he had discovered the truth about Megan, he still felt the betrayal, and this was his way of channeling it. By putting all of his effort into helping people in the same position he was in, he was putting the pain to good use. Max wondered sometimes if what Nev really needed was a break, if this was too taxing on him. He would never admit that it was hard for him to help these people, but he connected so deeply with every one of them. He understood what they were going through in a way that Max simply couldn’t.

“Got it,” Max said. “Say Anything had a concert on November 30, 2014, at the Palladium. It’s in Worcester, Massachusetts.”

“So this person lives somewhere near Worcester,” Nev said. “That’s definitely something.”

“Not really,” Max said. “That was the only concert they had in Massachusetts, so he could be anywhere in the state. And it was the closest one to New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine… if he was a big fan, he would be willing to travel that far. He could be from anywhere in New England.”

Nev put his hands over his eyes. “There’s got to be something,” he said quietly. “Maybe I should try calling again.”

“You’ve called him three times and haven’t gotten through,” Max said. “He’s probably using some kind of texting app.”

“Then I’ll text him again,” Nev said.

“You’ve already done that,” Max said. “I don’t think another text is going to change this guy’s mind.”

“But there’s got to be--”

“We’ve done everything we can, Nev,” Max said. “We’ve contacted him, Lena’s contacted him, the crew has contacted him… this guy doesn’t want to be found.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Nev asked. He got up and started pacing the tiny motel room, his steps quick. “Just give up? What am I supposed to say to Lena? How the hell am I going to look her in the eyes and tell her we can’t help her.”

“Maybe we are helping her,” Max said. Nev laughed, a bitter, short laugh he always used to brush Max off. “Think about it,” Max said. “If this guy is going to this much trouble not to be found, he’s definitely got something to hide. Something big. He’s probably married, or in some kind of trouble or something, I don’t know. But he’s clearly not who he says he is.”

“And you don’t think she deserves to get the truth?” Nev asked.

“I’m saying that maybe we can spare her from the pain of the truth,” Max said. “Get her out of this now before she gets in too deep.”

“She’s already in too deep,” Nev said. “She’s nineteen, she’s totally in love with a guy she’s never met, or seen, or spoken to on the phone… And this person knows everything about her, things nobody else knows, and he has so much power to hurt her…”

“So we stop him from hurting her even worse,” Max said.

Nev sat down on the end of the bed. “I just don’t know what to do, Max,” he said.

“I know,” Max said. He crawled to the end of the bed and wrapped his arms around Nev, giving him a gentle kiss on the neck. “You can’t fix everyone’s problems, Nev,” Max said. “You can only do the best you can do.”

“My best just doesn’t feel good enough right now,” Nev said.

Max took Nev’s face in his hands, and tilted his head so that he could look him in the eyes. “Your best is so much better than anyone else’s,” Max said. “We’ve been doing this for a long time, Nev, we were bound to get a dead end at some point. You’ve helped a lot of people. And you’ve helped Lena, Nev, I honestly believe that. It’s time to let it go.”

Nev looked at Max and slowly nodded.

“I love you,” Max said. “You did a good job here.”

Nev nodded again. “I love you too.”


End file.
